Looking Up

Looking up                  12/22/08

From where I stand, at 4”8”

Life loses some of its loftier moments.

I salute the Greek engineer

Who first created stadium seating.

Celebrating New Years Eve in midtown Manhattan

Never included the ball lighting the new year.

Just a half-a-jiffy (the smallest known measure of time)

Before the great Neanderthal annual event was announced

By 1,000,000 screaming morons.

The fucking dome disappears from my view,

Thanks to a 6’9”... OK maybe he was 5’9”!

It doesn’t matter when you’re 4’8’, and standing behind the schmuck

Subways are dangerous when your 4’8” tall.

Unable to see the signs , or fight my way out,

I traveled to the ends of the earth,

(Commonly known as the South Bronx),

Only to find I had arrived at the wrong planet

Where others meet friends at the beach,

At 4’8” I get to do belly-button inspections,

Advise people of the quality & quantity of lint they carry.

At 4’8” you run while others walk,

At 4’8” crossing streets is a challenge

At 4’8” seats are too high off the floor,

At 4’8” life’s about looking up!

Life's Little Surprise

We see the world for what it is.

No self delusion is possible

If the middle eye is focused,

Unless God has a sense of humor.

My volunteer work with the rehabilitation center

Gave me a feeling of self worth.

As chairman of the board

My primary task was to keep the program funded.

I gained much insight

Into the minds of the self destructive

Young men and women housed

In this full time existential program.

Two miles and ten light years from the Center

I answered my front door’s chime.

A thin girl, perhaps 14, asked for my 15 year old son.

She wished to buy some “dope”.

Last Dance

 “Lets have lunch, it’s the end of the semester”

Ned said to no one in particular.

He was ending his teaching career,

Wanting to commemorate the occasion.

I turned to view the other 10 students,

All intent on appearing not to have heard the question,

Going through the motions of closing books preparing to leave ,

While I, in the role of off-screen observer,

Recorded the dissonance of the dance.

The quiet desperation in the instructors suggestion

Pleaded for a ringing endorsement

That would validate two decades worth of effort.

(Showing up, sometimes advancing

An idea that got replayed by an underachiever

In the form of an effective response.)

But none was forthcoming.

How easy it should have been to utter

“Sure”, “lets do it”, “OK”, all would have sufficed.

It would have cost me nothing,

Yet I remained silent, avoided eye contact.

Ned’s embarrassment, and mine,

Stretched with each second, as we all feigned ignorance

Beseeching the teacher to repudiate his request.

Knowledge

I’m 90 tomorrow.

I didn’t plan to be here this long.

It’s getting to be a bitch.

There must be something worth sharing?

You know about love,

At least you think you do.

Family, friends, dogs and ocean views.

Are you sure they matter? Say yes.

Yes, pain matters.

Yes, loss matters.

Memories matter, even the good ones.

If you can hear the right music, it helps.

Warm unburdened silences help,

Believing someone cares adds sustenance

To a diet short on empathy.

Find a time you gave.

At 90 the wish list is short and selfish.

Check yours for tomorrow

Before happy is no longer an option;

Eat a piece of chocolate and touch something warm.

Kierkegaard’s Swiss Army Knife

Not an especially deadly weapon,

It had many other uses:

Flaying an apple, carving a lovers name on a tree trunk,

Cleaning your nails are but a few examples

Of the life and works of your garden variety swiss army knife.

We bought our knives at the corner convenience store.

I remember the smell of sawdust that pervaded the place.

This time I wasn’t buying cigarettes for Dad.

We were buying admission to “cool”.

Now, so many years later,

Sorting through the remains

Of our all too brief childhoods,

We puzzle over the improbability

That we have both retained

This piece of history.

These twins of incipient manhood

No longer resemble one another.

I have continued to live in the city,

Using my knife to cut string on occasion

And pry a jar of marmalade open.

You have whittled hearts and initials

On tree trunks, and cut cactus for dinner, traveling were you please.

No surprise that our  knives attest to different journeys

How odd that we should image the religion

You and I thought we shared

Like the knives, has been modified by our handling,

And the spirit that you call god differs from mine.

Journey

Ignorance is not the only virtue we have.

My generation knows the meaning of "me".

We have grown fat and righteous

With a system that promises time-release deodorants.

We have not bled very much,

Nor have we held ourselves accountable.

It's tempting to believe we are

Just a mirror, reflecting another mirror.

Before dismissing us entirely

Lets recognize that virtue and vice

Are not external realities,

Subject to review by a superior.

There is no overwhelming ethic,

Just process and superstition:

One is eternal

The other a choice of explanations.

If we can't eliminate our boundaries

Can we not stretch them a bit?

Love, hate, and wonders abound,

Even if they're all inside our enclosure. 

Jack Spat

He spat in the guy’s face.

Jack did not take kindly to the kibitzer,

Who thought my serve was good.

Walking off the racquetball court he invited the guy, Damon,

To discuss the unsolicited call  ... outside.

Damon declined, Jack spit in his face.

Jack thought his position clean,He spat in the guy’s face.

Jack did not take kindly to the kibitzer,

Who thought my serve was good.

Walking off the racquetball court he invited the guy, Damon,

To discuss the unsolicited call  ... outside.

Damon declined, Jack spit in his face.

Jack thought his position clean,

And had no choice but to dis Damon.

Jack’s sole concern;

“Would I refuse to play him after this”?

Feeling Christ-like I suggested 

I shared in the fault.

Had I not pointed to Damon,

Signaling a good shot,

While standing on the other side of the glass,

The incident would not have occurred.

What was I thinking?

Jack, nailed as a drug dealer, had a code.

“Get nasty first”. 

He had taught Greek philosophy at the college level

Before making money selling cocaine.

He wrote fiction, pointed, funny, active short stories.

Short, tough, and opinionated.

He took ballet, figured he’d get laid regularly,

As the only straight guy in the class.

Both of us white, could take on James Baldwin,

And push the brothers to read the Invisible Man.

I could afford lunch and he could afford to let me buy.

He was 65, told chicks he was fifty, and looked the part.

Told me that’s the only thing he lied about and asked me to cover.

Found he had a thing about Jews. 

Allowed me to be the exception.

I declined and that was Jack.

And had no choice but to dis Damon.

Jack’s sole concern;

“Would I refuse to play him after this”?

Feeling Christ-like I suggested 

I shared in the fault.

Had I not pointed to Damon,

Signaling a good shot,

While standing on the other side of the glass,

The incident would not have occurred.

What was I thinking?

Jack, nailed as a drug dealer, had a code.

“Get nasty first”. 

He had taught Greek philosophy at the college level

Before making money selling cocaine.

He wrote fiction, pointed, funny, active short stories.

Short, tough, and opinionated.

He took ballet, figured he’d get laid regularly,

As the only straight guy in the class.

Both of us white, could take on James Baldwin,

And push the brothers to read the Invisible Man.

I could afford lunch and he could afford to let me buy.

He was 65, told chicks he was fifty, and looked the part.

Told me that’s the only thing he lied about and asked me to cover.

Found he had a thing about Jews. 

Allowed me to be the exception.

I declined and that was Jack.

It Happened For A Reason

On a warm and sunny September morning,

A sadistic joke of a day, not dissimilar to 9/11.

20 people where gathered at the cemetery.

Little Michael had been hit by a speeding car.

His 4 year old body now enclosed in a child’s coffin,

Was lowered into a grave not much larger than him.

Reverend Carl’s attempt to console the parent

Was predictably unsuccessful.

To Stephen the boy’s father, the words,

“Know that God wanted Michael in heaven for a Reason”

Pierced his mind, inflamed his stomach,

Twisted his heart.

Everyone would leave soon, too soon.

Stephen sobbed uncontrollably, mumbling self-deprecations

And pleas for a different reality.

Pain turning to anger reached for purchase.

“WHAT REASON?” he screamed at Carl.

Aware of the unseemliness of his outburst,

Stephen immediately turned  to the other mourners

To apologize, only to stop

And bellow, “WHY? WHY?”.

Carl, a survivor of hundreds of funerals

Knew not to offer another suggestion.

Maybe later Stephen would accept God’s wisdom,

Or perhaps Stephen will demand, like Job,

An answer that will not be forthcoming.